Blowing Bubbles
by JkPippa
Summary: Found an adorable OTP prompt on Tumblr: "Imagine your OTP blowing bubbles indoors. There's a soapy mess everywhere."


RJ stood in the middle of the main floor of his loft, a bowl in his hand.

He had been feeling down, so he had gone upstairs and gotten out of his chef jacket, grabbed a piece of wire from his work table and had twisted it to make a ring. Then happily, he had mixed some dishwasher soap with water and was now standing in the middle of his loft, a content smile on his face.

He put the wire ring in the water and pulled it out, blowing softly towards it to make a large bubble. He laughed softly as he watched it float away, glistening in the sunlight that entered through the glass roof, until it dried off and popped.

He repeated the process, watching the bubbles float around him, using his breath to make series of large bubbles and just happily feeling himself cheered up by the silly activity.

"RJ?" He heard Casey ask from the top of the stairs that came from the restaurant below. "What are you doing?"

As a response, RJ blew more bubbles, watching them float around.

"You've never blown bubbles?" he asked his student.

"Not indoors," Casey said, walking towards him. "And not alone."

"Why do people always make such a big deal about not doing things alone?" RJ asked, stopping to blow more bubbles. "What is wrong with doing things alone?"

"Well, it's lonely, isn't it?"

RJ walked toward his work table and put the bowl down. He looked around for another piece of wire. "Well, alone and lonely are not the same thing," he explained, wrapping the wire into a ring. "You can be lonely in a crowded room, and you can be perfectly content with nothing but your own company."

"Okay," Casey said with a shrug. "But why are you blowing bubbles alone and indoors?"

"I like my home," RJ said with a shrug. "I was feeling down and I thought I'd blow bubbles."

"Why?" Casey had walked to where RJ was standing by his work table.

"Why not?"

"You couldn't think of anything else to do to cheer yourself up?" Casey asked him.

"Of course I could!" RJ exclaimed with a wide hand gesture. He started counting activities with his fingers. "I thought about taking a long shower, baking cookies, painting, playing the guitar, going out for a surf, dancing… but then I settled for blowing bubbles."

Casey decided to give it up as a bad job. It was obviously one of those things RJ did for no reason other than being RJ.

The master offered him the second ring he had made. "Want to join me? Since you think doing it alone is not good enough."

"I didn't say that."

"Well?"

Casey took the second ring and gave RJ a weird look, feeling slightly silly about what he was about to do.

"Socrates said you should never do anything embarrassing, publicly or privately," RJ said, soaking his ring in the soap.

"A thought you obviously don't share," Casey said, dunking his own ring.

"Au contraire, mi amigo," RJ said and blew out a string of bubbles. "The key is to define what is embarrassing to you."

Casey blew his own string of bubbles and looked at him. "And you don't find this embarrassing?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be doing it."

"Right."

"But I understand it may seem embarrassing for others."

More bubbles from both of them.

"I don't find it embarrassing," Casey whispered.

"I didn't say you did," RJ answered, blowing the bubbles upwards to watch them glisten in the sunlight.

"You kind of did," Casey told him before blowing out more bubbles.

"What I say and what you hear can be two completely different things," RJ told him, after letting out more bubbles. "Funny how that works, isn't it?"

Casey blew out more bubbles just so he didn't have to admit his master was, as usual, right.

"Did you know that it is dryness and not puncturing what makes bubbles pop?" RJ asked. Casey shook his head. "You can go through a bubble with a needle and it won't pop, provided it is not too dry. But dryness kills them," he continued. "Dryness can kill a lot of things, come to think of it."

"Like what?"

"Like people," RJ answered mysteriously.

"You mean, like, dehydration?" Casey asked. One look at RJ's face told him he was mistaken. "Of course not, that would be too straight forward for you."

"Dryness as an emotional state," RJ said, again, without any context.

They remained silent and kept blowing bubbles rapidly, until there were bubbles floating all over the loft, popping and leaving a soapy mess everywhere.

"What had you in such a bad mood today?" Casey asked, suddenly.

RJ shrugged. "I can't remember," he blew out one last string of bubbles. "I don't feel down anymore." He offered the bowl to Casey but the red ranger shook his head to let him know he was done blowing bubbles as well.

RJ took the bowl to the kitchen sink, and Casey followed him. "RJ, you know you can trust us, right?"

"Of course."

"I mean, if you ever need to talk or– well, anything."

RJ looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, Casey," he said. "But you have enough on your plate as it is."

"You have more on your plate than we do," Casey refuted. "And we don't mind. Well, I know I don't mind."

RJ took a rag from a drawer and pulled a scrunchie from his pocket. He pulled his hair back in a very short ponytail in absolute silence, making Casey feel uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry if I went too far," the student whispered.

RJ smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder. "On the contrary, I think you went too close," he said. He laughed at his own joke and then gave his student a soft look. "It's alright, Case, I've learned to be alone and to sort my own problems out." He stood there, a pensive expression on his face. "Maybe I learnt too well and now I don't know how to confide in others." He shrugged and walked back to the main floor.

Casey stood there by the kitchen-level rails, not sure what to make of that. RJ sat on the floor and began wiping it with the rag, slowly and carefully.

"What are you doing now?" Casey asked.

"There's soap everywhere," RJ answered, gesturing towards the floor. "I have to clean it up."

"Why don't you use a mop?"

"Because I need to think," the wolf master answered, still wiping the floor. "And I think better when I'm busy doing something soothing."

"Like wiping the floor?"

"What's wrong with wiping the floor?"

"I give up," Casey said and walked to the stairs.

"Casey," RJ called before the other man went downstairs.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for joining me," RJ said. "I was feeling kinda lonely."


End file.
